The Surprising Winnie-the-Pooh/Rolling Stones Connection

A rear-view photo of Cotchford Farm and its infamous swimming pool., From Daily Mail/Rex/Rex USA.

Today, in fascinating real-estate developments, we learn that one of the most beloved literary characters and a Rolling Stones band member lived on the same quaint British estate, Cotchford Farm. According to Forbes, the six-bedroom house, whose past proprietors include Winnie-the-Pooh creator A. A. Milne and founding Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones, is now on the market for $3.2 million. The 16th-century home, historic in both the literal, literary, and rock-and-roll senses, was purchased in 1925 by Milne, who penned all of his Winnie-the-Pooh books on the East Sussex estate, using the nearby Ashdown Forest as a setting for the bear’s adventures.

Sometime in the late 1960s, original Rolling Stones guitarist Brian Jones bought Pooh’s stomping grounds, and in fact died there in 1969. Jones drowned in the estate’s outdoor pool a month after Mick Jagger and Keith Richards dismissed him from the band. The pool has since been remodeled by its current owner, Alastair Johns, who creepily sold its original tiles to fans of the late rock star for approximately $150 each.

The house still features original Pooh-related details, like a statue of Milne’s son, the real-life Christopher Robin; the bridge where the fictional Christopher Robin played “Pooh sticks”; and even the occasional flock of fans, whose visits “increase every time there’s a new Winnie-the-Pooh film,” Johns tells the Telegraph. According to the real-estate listing, Cotchford Farm’s other details include antique wooden beams and window frames, a den with a fireplace, an oak-paneled dining room, a pool house, and a fish pond.